On this day in 1919

Dec. 27, 1919

Dec. 28, 1919, article in the Lincoln County News in North Carolina

Black World War I veteran Powell Green was lynched by a mob of white men near Franklinton, North Carolina. 

Many returning Black soldiers, who wanted their full rights as citizens, became targets of violence. Green was arrested for allegedly killing a “prominent” white movie theater owner, but he was never able to defend himself in a court of law. A mob of masked white men abducted him as while officers were transporting the 23-year-old from the jail in Franklinton to the jail in Raleigh. 

During that kidnapping, Green broke free from the mob, but they managed to overtake him and tied him to a car, and he was dragged for at least a half mile before they shot him and hung him. 

In the days that followed, crowds flocked to the site of his lynching. According to press accounts, “souvenir hunters” cut buttons and pieces of clothing from the body and later cut down the tree for more keepsakes. One news account seemed to suggest Green was to blame for his death, saying that he “was disposed to think well of himself and was self-assertive.” 

No one was ever prosecuted for his killing, one of at least 80 lynchings that took place in 1919.

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